health note June 24

Woops! I see it's been two weeks since I posted an update, and reading my previous post may have been discouraging since my weight was up that day. On Friday, 6/11, I dropped 2.2 pounds to 211.0. Yay! But that next weekend I attended a family wedding and small reunion, then work and rain gave me an excuse to not walk much for a couple more days, so by Wednesday, 6/16, I was back up to 214.3. Boo! Not to worry, doing the right things yields positive results.

In the last eight days I have dropped 6.8 pounds, and weighed in this morning at 207.5. (The last time I remember my weight being 208 was in 1995.) I'm probably not going to hit the 6/26 target I posted on 6/1. I intentionally set the bar low (using a limbo analogy), and my gut still can't get under that ever-lowering target. But I have dropped 9.4 pounds in the 23 days since June 1, and I don't think I would have accomplished that without an aggressive target.

I would like to tell you by what method I have accomplished this eight straight days of weight loss, even losing weight over this previous weekend with our regular Sunday family dinner. Unfortunately there is no silver bullet. The answer really seems to be to just keep doing the right things over an extended period of days, weeks, and months.

First, I am NOT on a crash diet, but my stomach has been slowly shrinking, so I am satisfied and feel full with less food in it. When I remember, I eat a bit slower, giving my brain time to get signals from my stomach and inform my mind that I'm no longer hungry. One trick my wife taught me a long time ago, probably from Weight Watchers or some women's magazine, is to put the fork or spoon down after each bite. That gives me time to chew my food before I swallow, and I find myself savoring the flavors more as I eat. Men, don't underestimate the value of a good woman's advice or her magazines; my cardiologist recommended I read women's fitness articles after my heart attack in 2001.

Second, I eat less at a time, but more often. Ideally, I eat at 6AM, 10AM, 2PM, and 6PM. I don't have many ideal days, but again, I set a good target and get as close as I can without making myself crazy. I hope you are seeing that I intentionally do not stress about my weight. Stress is a very real killer. I look way down the road, I set up a somewhat difficult target, I recognize that I probably won't hit the bullseye, but I know that if I hit one of the rings then I am better off than I would have been if I hadn't tried. So I find myself grinning as I look back over a day and realize I have been eating and snacking all day and never got hungry. Not every day, but it happens. I keep walnuts, soy nuts, and raisins on the kitchen counter where I can grab them easily when I have a craving to chew on something. I take sunflower seeds to eat when I'm reading on work breaks. I buy the kind still in the shell so I have to work to eat them. I now prefer Winco bulk sunflower seeds over the better-known brands; they seem to be a bit less salty and have a nuttier flavor, and are not as bland as the low-sodium brands. I also throw fruit in the blender with lo-fat vanilla yogurt, 2% milk, and a spoon of cinnamon powder, then put a quart of the concoction in the refrigerator. It usually takes 2-3 days for me to finish that off.

Third, I have lost my craving for some of the more unhealthy foods. This was neither a goal nor an expected outcome. I have so come to enjoy my turkey chili, brown rice, stir-fry veggies, bran cereal, lo-fat vanilla yogurt, fruits and veggies of many kinds, and spices (black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, garlic, onion, oregano, cinnamon), that I honestly no longer enjoy the feeling of grease in my mouth. I have always loved chips and salsa, but I have two large unopened bags of tortilla chips in the pantry that have been sitting there for weeks. I'm sure someday I will open them, eat them, and enjoy the flavor, but they no longer scream at me to sit and stuff myself while watching some brainless tv show.

Finally, and this is key, I move. It isn't as important what type of movement I do, I just have to move. I keep moving until I sweat, then I keep sweating for at least half an hour. When I started 18 months ago I couldn't will myself to move and sweat that long at a time. I was completely undisciplined and had no clue how to set a target and start working toward it. I am somewhat competitive, but I have never been an athlete. I was a perennial bench warmer on school sports teams. Never in my life have I worked this long on a single physical goal. I encourage you to start moving, and find a way to chart your progress. Learn to break a sweat even if you are simply walking. As you keep at it your ability to go longer, further, faster will improve gradually and naturally.

My wife heard it takes 12 weeks of a regular workout routine for weight loss to really kick in. I think my recent six months may be an example of that. In 2009 I started at 264 and ended at 244. I wasn't moving much, and I had stopped losing weight. October of that year I was clear down to 235, but after my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, the weight crept back up to 244.

Sometime early this year I really noticed how the effort my wife was putting into getting healthy was having a very noticeable, positive result. Her friends were complimenting her, too. Her good results was one of the motivators that got me to renew my effort to get healthy. So I started walking. I could easily walk a mile at first, but two miles was a bit painful. It made me sweat. I needed to sweat.

As the weeks have gone by I've tried to run or jog or do intervals, but with a knee that flares up the most effective long-term exercise has been to simply keep walking. Through the natural conditioning and strengthening of regular routine activity, I now start sweating in the second mile, and it is the fifth or sixth mile that makes me really work. So far this year, with the increased activity and smarter calorie intake, I have dropped from 244 to 207.

I intend to keep setting long-range targets that I probably won't hit. I am enjoying the long-term results. My 42 inch waist jeans used to be uncomfortably tight. Now the 38 inch waist jeans I dug out of an old clothes stack have to be cinched up with an older 36 inch belt.

And this week, for the first time in years, I am actually hopeful that I might really be able to start running. I am being very cautious, and need to visit a doctor that specializes in sports medicine to get the knee checked. I would rather walk for the rest of my life if running means damaging my knee to the point of needing drastic surgery. But twice this week I have run and the knee pain has gone away at about a quarter mile. My mile speed is only 9:30, but I am not in training for competition. I'm really just looking for a faster more effective way to get the heart rate up and keep it up so I sweat faster and longer, burning fat calories more efficiently. I guess that's the point of aerobic exercise, isn't it?

I hope you find this encouraging. Life really is possible after obesity. The Biggest Loser television show can be very motivating, but the winners spend 16 weeks getting educated and abused by professional trainers. If you can find a local Biggest Loser competition, join it. I haven't done that, but I am living with a person that is in her second competition and is doing very well. That group accountability is very powerful for many people. You may need to start slow, but start. Maybe you will be able to enjoy playing with your grandkids a bit more. Maybe your spouse will enjoy being with you a little bit more; if you are anything like me you will be more enjoyable to be around if you feel a little bit better about yourself. I used to quote the old Muddy Waters song, "I was built for comfort, I wasn't built for speed." But fat isn't comfortable either. I'm still overweight, but going in the right direction and really starting to enjoy the process.

health note June 10

I broke two of my cardinal rules and paid the price.

The two rules I broke are: (1) Go to bed early enough to get plenty of sleep, and (2) don't eat late in the evening.

I had to get up for work at 3:30 AM today, so I should have been in bed no later than 9:30 last night. It was after 10:30 I got in bed, so I got less than five hours sleep.

I didn't eat dinner last night 'til after 8:00 PM. I don't care how healthy the food is, if I eat it late in the evening, my body is likely to store it to use some other day.

So, this morning I weighed 213.2, up 0.9 pounds from yesterday, and 0.4 pounds behind my target schedule. I've put myself in a position of needing to lose 1.0 pounds by tomorrow morning just to be on target.

And today's life responsibilities and weather forecast are not helpful. I'm hoping to be able to do some running or walking this evening, but that's not quite as effective as getting the metabolism going early in the day.

health note June 9

Sunday morning I weighed 212.7. Woohoo! Monday morning I was back up to 214.1. Rats! But that is what I predicted. Tuesday morning, 213.0. This morning, 212.3. I'm still 1.1 pounds ahead of the schedule I set up nine days ago.

Shoes. New $95 running shoes, that is. I started running last week in my old Adidas. After three days they started falling apart. I bought them probably 4 years ago to play volleyball. Knee surgery and chronic pain stopped me a couple years ago from continuing to play. They're still comfortable to wear, and my feet, toes, ankles, shins don't seem to be any worse now for running in them. The chronic knee pain is no worse. The minor pain in the calf, ham, and quad I attribute to the fact that I ran a little and exercised some different muscle groups.

The old Adidas labels say Naler Classic and TENNIS, so I believe they are a true tennis shoe. That's probably why they are comfortable on the feet and worked fine for volleyball. But they weren't engineered as a running shoe for an overweight person, and their age is showing. Pieces are literally falling off outside and inside the shoes.

The new shoes are Saucony ProGrid Ride 3. The pair weighs about 4 ounces less than the Adidas. Kudos to Portland Running Shoe Company in West Linn for taking the time to watch me run in at least six different pairs of shoes. Once we narrowed it down to two competing pairs, they had me put on one from each pair and told me to go outside and run around the building. Half-way around the building the difference was night and day and the decision was easy. At least the decision about which shoe was best for me to run in was easy. I think they were the least expensive I tried on, too, but I didn't know that when I was running around the building.

I told them I would take them home, but wanted to be able to return them if I got home and checked my finances and found I just couldn't afford to keep them. $95 is a lot of money to me. They said no problem, that their return policy is very generous, so I took them home.

I struggled with justifying keeping them. I found the previous year's model of the same shoe online for as little as $60 (including shipping, with rebates, etc.) I have not found the current year model online any cheaper than the store. So, now I'm justifying the $35 difference.

My son warned me that just because they are the same model and have the same description doesn't mean they will feel the same when you run in them. The $60 online option I found had a "no returns" policy. I haven't found the older model in a store in the area where I could try them.

Here's my strongest argument for paying the extra money. I feel Portland Running Shoe Company worked for and earned the extra $35. They took time to work with my wife a couple weeks ago when she got new running shoes. She loves the shoes they put her in after going through their selection and elimination process. They had the previous year model of the shoes she wanted and we were able to get that discount in the store. They spent the better part of an hour working with me when I went back a few days after buying my wife's shoes. Back in my technical heyday I charged as much as $250 an hour for my consulting services, so $35 for an hour of their advice and service is cheap by comparison. I want that store to be profitable enough so their expertise will still be there when our shoes wear out. There are sometimes good reasons for buying in a local retail store.

I tried running in a couple other old pairs of shoes I had collected over the years. Indoors soccer shoes. Basketball high tops. I discovered my feet are not the same size they were ten or fifteen years ago. And apparently I wore them and broke them down more than I had realized. Running in them hurt a lot, especially the toes since the shoes are now a full size too small. You cause pain in your toes, and your whole body recoils to try to protect itself, causing pain in many places.

Three days after buying the Saucony shoes, I finally took them out of the box to test them on my then-smarting feet and toes. It was 9PM Sunday, the sun had just set, dusk was going to quickly turn to dark. I ran 1.5 miles in 13 minutes (give or take a few yards and seconds). My first reaction to actually running on the road was how good they felt; like moccasins on carpet. I guess I am a convert to good running shoes.

I ran three miles yesterday morning. That was my longest run in many years, probably decades. I walked three more miles with my wife last night. I walked and ran 2.5 miles this morning. I was going to do three miles, but I discovered even the tiny version of what Oregonians call hail stings when you run in it. (My brother got a lump on his head when he got caught outside in a hailstorm in North Dakota.) I also learned how heavy even good shoes feel once they get waterlogged. A lot of rain and hail came down on me in that last mile today. One more notch in becoming a "real" runner?

Reality check: my mile times are still more than double what they were in 1972. But, I'm feeling better than I have in a very long time, and my weight is down to where it was six or eight years ago.

health note June 5

Thursday I weighed in at 215.2, Friday morning I was back up to 215.8, this morning I dropped down to 213.4. As I've said, I can't be concerned or excited about a daily weight up or down. I have to watch the longer trend. Any time my weight drops by more than a pound, I expect a bit of a rebound.

I am consciously trying to lose weight significantly faster than I have the last eighteen months. I am walking two to six miles and running more than a mile most days. I have reduced food portions by about a third and am trying to stop eating before feeling full. I just had a half cup of chili, a half cup of rice, and six ounces of orange juice, and my stomach is satisfied. I am eating more often, usually about four hours between meals or snacks. I have increased my water intake, but that's still nowhere near recommended amounts.

Exercise other than walking and running is still almost non-existent. That is the next thing that will make a difference in my overall health.

health note June 2

It's after 6PM. I've only been home about an hour since I left the house at 5AM.

This morning I weighed 215.8. That's a half-pound under goal. Not too surprising since yesterday was the first time in years I had run more than two miles. I wanted to run again this morning, but extra work came up and that takes priority. I was only home mid-day long enough to chop up some veggies and eat a salad. As soon as I got home after work I changed and started jogging. I only made 1.5 miles before I quit and walked home. On the upside it's the first time I've run more than a mile two days in a row.

I was a little sore today, primarily my legs and back. My legs felt about like they should a day after running two miles for the first time, but my back is more a chronic thing unrelated to running. I'm hoping the running and weight loss will relieve some of my back pain. I really think my back hates the seats at work. The company's not going to change the bus drivers' seats, so I better find a way to work with them.

I ran cross-country in high school (1971-1974) so I have an idea what running and training should feel like. I expected today to be harder than yesterday, and it was. I'm not training for a particular event, distance or speed. I just want to look and feel better. While jogging today I found myself repeating over and over, "Remember the goal, remember the prize." The prize is simply being able to look in a mirror and say, "That's better." If others notice, and they already have, that adds encouragement.

So, this morning I was 0.1 pounds away from tomorrow's goal. Nothing is guaranteed. In the 18 months I've been tracking my weight, I've learned to ignore (for the most part) the ups and downs of daily weight, and look back at the trend.

If you see a friend looking better or hear they're trying, encourage them. It helps. It helps a lot. My wife and I have significantly increased our talk-time since I started walking with her every chance I get. Even if we don't say a word for a mile or two, I still love walking with her.

health note June 1

I weighed in this morning and was back down to 216.9. The Wii says that for me the top of the "normal" range is 194, and "ideal" is 171. I'm forgetting about ideal for now and aiming for normal. My Wii weight ranges are based on a height of 6'2". I don't know if my age, 53, is a factor.

I need to lose another 23 pounds to get to normal. There is a family event the last week of July that involves a swimming pool, and I would like to think it is possible to get from 217 to 194 in 53 days. I'm going to subtract the seven Sundays that I'm not likely to lose weight, and the seven Mondays it takes to get back to the previous Saturday weight, and I will still have 39 days to lose the 23 pounds. That's 0.59 pounds I need to lose each of the days I'm counting.

I'll spare you the daily targets. The weekly Saturday weight targets are: 6/5 214.5; 6/12 211.6; 6/19 208.6; 6/26 205.7; 7/3 202.7; 7/10 199.8; 7/17 196.8; 7/24 193.9. This seems doable.

I said yesterday I need to add to my walking routine some exercise for torso and upper body strength. I wondered how many honest push-ups I could do. Six was tough. The seventh was very shaky. Eight didn't happen. (Maybe I needed Bob or Jill yelling at me to get to ten.) Let's just say the word "guns" is not likely to be applied to my physique any time soon.

I dug out the Wii Biggest Loser game my wife used for quite a while before she moved on to even tougher routines. I have no concept of calorie counting so I can't do the whole Biggest Loser program, but there are exercise routines I can access. I did a 19-minute light workout it offered plus the warm-up and cool-down. After eating a salad I decided to test the knee. I jogged 2.5 miles in about 30 minutes then walked home from the park. I am sweating profusely and the knee feels great; we'll see after it cools off.

Until next time.